


liminality

by dizzy



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 08:41:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16446548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dizzy/pseuds/dizzy
Summary: Phil's never been like everyone else.





	liminality

Phil knows his mum loves him. She birthed him from her very own body and she's never let him want anything in his life. She fed him at the breast as an infant, she wiped away his tears when he cried. She held his hand when they went on long walks through the wild woods nearby. 

His mum's such a lovely woman. It makes him ache sometimes how much he loves her, and how much she's always tried. She rings him once a week to talk, and she always listens like she means it. 

It's not her fault... how he turned out. 

*

"In grade three my classmates locked me out of the room," Phil says. "And my teacher pretended not to notice. I stood in the hall for four hours until a custodian came by. I think he'd have pretended not to see me as well if I hadn't started to cry." 

"Cunt." Dan bites down on a biscuit, sending crumbs scattering down his shirt. 

"She was nice," Phil says, voice distant. He doesn't know why he's telling Dan this. He doesn't know why he tells Dan anything. He's just addicted to the sound of his own voice when Dan's around. He's addicted to the way Dan listens and doesn't have to pretend he means it. "All the other students liked her." 

"You were a kid. She was a cunt." Dan brushes off his black t-shirt, then puts the packet of biscuits on the nightstand so he can turn onto his side. His fringe falls into his eyes, and he reaches up to flick it away. 

Phil grabs Dan's hand. He does that a lot. He reaches out, he touches. 

Dan lets him. Always. Sometimes - often - Dan even touches first. 

Phil presses Dan's hand to his cheek. "You're so warm," he says. 

"You're so cold." Dan leans forward and presses his lips to Phil's forehead. The kiss feels even warmer than Dan's fingertips. It sends a flush all throughout Phil. "Fucking Voldemort." 

Dan says names but he says them with love, says them as he wraps his arms around Phil and holds him in close enough for his warmth to seep right into Phil. 

*

"What am I?" Phil asks. 

The night outside is howling. Rain splatters violently against the window. It always seems to rain the worst right over where he sleeps. 

He doesn't expect Dan to have any answers. Dan can't say why the temperature drops when Phil walks into the room. He can't explain why dogs cower and tuck their tails when he walks by. He can't give any reason for the way hope just seeps slowly but surely out of the eyes of everyone near to him. 

He lived a very lonely life until Dan came along - this one person who seems immune to the darkness in Phil. There's nothing about Phil that puts Dan off. Sometimes Dan's even ridiculous enough to say that Phil's the one that saved _his_ life. 

Dan doesn't pretend like he doesn't know what Phil is talking about, though. He may not feel it firsthand, but he's seen what being near Phil too long does to people. There's a reason they don't do conventions like other youtubers, that they turn down every offer and appearance. 

It drives their audience wild, the mystery. They keep expecting some kind of fantastic resolution. They'll be waiting forever, Phil knows. Dan always says he's just fine with it; anxiety and agoraphobia happen to be quite compatible with a mild touch of the evils. 

(Growing up, Phil might have been traumatized at someone casually saying that word. With Dan, it feels like someone describing a shade of paint on the wall; a fact, and not even a particularly interesting one.) 

"Dan," he says again, reminding Dan of the question, because sometimes he's masochistic like that. He needs Dan to look at him like he's slightly daft and adorable for it. He needs to leech off Dan's normality. 

Dan doesn't say anything for a long time, then he simple says: "You're Phil." 

*

Youtube has given Phil everything good in his life. 

The camera doesn't capture whatever lurks inside of him that makes people feel so wrong, like he's so wrong. He speaks and the camera just captures the smile on his face and the words that he says. 

He doesn't understand what it's like to feel liked until he starts to get comments on every single video. On twitter, people talk back to him and don't make polite excuses away. It's what he'd wanted his whole life, to get a glimpse of what this felt like. So he finds his people lit by the glow of a computer screen and forgets for a while how alone he is. 

He's good at it, too. He's good at talking to people when they can concentrate on more than the racing of their own hearts when he speaks. His popularity has grown and grown over the years, first by himself and then with Dan. 

Youtube gave him Dan, too. The persistent boy who wouldn't listen to Phil's declarations that it wouldn't work. He'd shown up in Manchester that October night, ringing Phil and saying if Phil didn't come pick him up he'd just have to sleep in the station and did Phil really want Dan's murder-stabbing-death on his conscience? 

Phil will never forget the sense of loss he'd felt walking up to the station. He'll never forget the sheer disbelief when Dan threw himself at Phil in a way no one his whole twenty two years up to that point ever had. 

He's not that young anymore, and neither is Dan. They share a life together, a very normal life when the doors to the world are closed. They order takeaway and bicker over socks on the floor and they film videos together and they're very, very successful. 

Phil can almost forget what he is when he's with Dan. Once in a while he actually does, then he'll answer the door and the postman will drop a package, or he'll get the takeaway and the delivery boy will startle away without even waiting for a tip. 

It's not that he does anything. People just look at him and they want to run away. They don't know why any more than he does. 

He wonders if they have nightmares at night. Sometimes he gets maudlin and asks Dan. 

Dan usually tells him shut up and throws a game controller at him. They're working on their coping mechanisms. 

*

"I'm so glad you've got him," Phil's mum says, after asking about Dan. "Lovely lad, that Dan." 

It's the one thing she says that Phil knows she really, really means. 

She wants him to be loved, wholly and completely, even if she can't be the one to do it herself. 

He looks across the room at where Dan is sitting, VR headset on and hands flailing wildly holding phallic shaped controllers. He smiles at the sight, ridiculous as it is. "Yeah," Phil agrees. "I'm glad I've got him, too." 

“Who?” Dan asks, once Phil’s hung up the phone. "Me. Better have been me."

“You were listening in,” Phil accuses. 

He doesn’t really mind. 

“Sure was,” Dan agrees. “Now tell me all the nice things you said about me.” 

Phil smiles. They’ve got things to do. Emails to respond to. Videos to be filmed. Edits to be made. 

He gets to his feet and crosses the room. Dan’s got the headset off before Phil even occupies the space beside him. He wraps Phl up like it’s nothing at all, tactile and warm and smelling so nice. “I love you a lot,” Phil says. 

He knows what love is. He feels it. He’s always felt it, even if people couldn’t feel it back. 

“Of course you do,” Dan says. “And I love you too.” 

Even if _most_ people couldn’t feel it back. 

*

He leaves Dan naked in their bed, bathed in moonlight. 

He likes it on the balcony at night. He puts on a sweater with sleeves that are too long and tucks his knees up against his body. He feels small out here, but the city makes sounds and it makes him feel like a part of something. 

Dan will wake up eventually. He’ll come to check on Phil, and maybe join him for a while. Then he’ll pull Phil back inside and he’ll make them something warm to drink and Phil can play the whole scenario out in his head. 

He hugs his knees to his chest even harder. He’s gotten used to this, feeling light and heavy at the same time. Stories like his aren’t meant to end well, he thinks. In the books and the movies they never do. 

But he hears Dan’s footsteps growing closer and he smiles into the darkness. He’ll write his own happy ending, and he’ll not do it alone.

**Author's Note:**

> [read and reblog on tumblr](http://alittledizzy.tumblr.com/post/179540151435/liminality-rating-t-word-count-1481-summary)


End file.
